


Obscuro

by ButterflyGhost



Series: due South Wizard!Verse [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, due South
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob sees more than he wants to, and Benny hides from himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obscuro

What the hell is the boy thinking? 

I wondered what it was, what had caused the wall to slam down, to keep him in, and me out. I'd thought, perhaps, I'd said something, done something. It's not as though it's easy, straddling two worlds. Sometimes I forget how something feels, what something tastes like, how to say the right thing. I never had the gift for the right word anyway, not where he was concerned. Oh, I could write, I could say anything on paper... but to my son? To his face?

It's no wonder that he's impatient with me. I can understand that. I can feel it in him, underneath his attempts to honour his father, to forgive him. To forgive me. Yes, I can feel how he feels. Often frustrated, and... I admit it, still trying to get past the hurts of his childhood. But this wasn't like that. This wasn't like him... this wall. It was a new development.

Now, of course, I can see that it is her.

Over the years I'd thought of talking to him about that whole situation... For a Mountie to be enamoured of a criminal, for an Auror to be devoted to a miscreant witch. Wrong, wrong, wrong... But how could I talk to him about that, when I'd never really talked to him about anything at all? When I was alive I never seemed to find the time. Or perhaps that was an excuse, and I was just putting it off because it was too embarrassing a thing for a man to discuss with his son. Now that I'm dead, I just don't have the words. But she's bad news, she always was. And for me to find myself suddenly here, while he's sleeping, when his defences are all down, to see them naked in each other's arms... nothing prepared me for that. A father doesn't expect to see his son like that at the best of times, with the best of women. And this is pretty much the worst of times. 

Besides which, a change is coming. 

She opens her eyes, and looks at me. I know she can see me. She smiles.

I blink, and I'm gone. A cold smile follows me. 

And I know it. I know it even if he doesn't. She's toxic, and she's in his veins.

Something wicked this way comes.  
…  
…

In the end I had to go back to work. For the first time ever, I resented going in. It wasn't as though I didn't deserve this. After all, I had weeks worth of sick days stacked up, and... ten years to make up for. We hadn't left the hotel room for three days, and I still wanted more. I was surprised, when it came to it, that I had the energy to aparate. She couldn't yet. She hadn't recovered enough, and we hadn't got around to replacing her wand. She clung onto me, and when we arrived in my apartment she was giggling, like a girl. “Tickled,” she whispered, and before I knew it we were in bed again.

The next day Ray let himself in without knocking.

“You're there,” he said, “where the hell have you been...”

Then he saw her, pulling the blankets up over herself, hiding her nakedness. His eyebrows shot up, and he stared, then realised he was staring, and looked away, blushing. At me, unfortunately, which seemed to embarrass him even more. After all, I was standing there in my underwear. A slow smile spread across his face, though there was a twinge of something else in there. Regret, almost, I could have thought, if I'd wanted to flatter myself.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I didn't realise you had company.”

I cleared my throat. “Ray, this is Victoria. Victoria, this is my partner, Ray Kowalski.”

She rose to the occasion, literally, standing up elegantly, and wearing the blankets like a queenly robe. “Pleased to meet you, Ray.”

“Yeah,” he was scratching the back of his neck, and trying not to look at either of us. He was getting redder. “Pleased to meet you too. Any friend of Fraser's... uhm... well, pleased to meet you.”

Victoria smirked, and I didn't like it. It felt for a moment like she was laughing at my Ray. But it was only for an instant.

“I'll... I'll let you get on then,” Ray said. “Let me know when you're coming into work.”

“Later today,” I said, fully intending to keep my promise. 

“Okay then. See you later.” And he spun on his heel and was out of the apartment like a shot.

I turned around, and she dropped the blankets. Naked, she looked... perfect. The prison pall was fading, and she was radiant in my eyes. A Greek goddess, sculpted in ice. 

“So,” she said, “you're going to work?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice dying in my throat.

“When?”

“Later,” I said, knowing as I did so that it was a lie.

I would have a lot of explaining to do to Thatcher, but that could wait. For now there was... 

There was her. Only her.

I didn't get into work that day at all.  
…  
…

Thatcher wasn't the worst of it. She did, as I could have expected... as I did indeed expect, haul me over the coals. I simply stood and took it. Then, of course, there were the sideways glances from those who knew me. Turnbull, looking concerned, but far too polite to say anything... and Vecchio, far too... too Chicago to say nothing.

Without realising it, he quoted my other Ray, Kowalski.

“Where the hell have you been?”

And I couldn't help myself. It came out blunt, and curt, and rude. “What business is it of yours?”

He blinked, and fell silent. I put my fingertips to my head, and massaged my temples. I wanted to say I was sorry, but if I did then it would only encourage further conversation. That would be intolerable. It's not that I desired to be secretive... It isn't that I was ashamed of her. But I was, I am... conflicted. It would take so much explaining, and even if I were to try to explain, there would be no certainty that anyone would understand. Victoria and I... we barely understood ourselves. She was so angry with me. I could feel it blazing off her at times, a fever heat on her skin. And her magic, as it returned to her, sometimes bled through her touch, into my skin, and burned. But then, just when I could stand it no more... coolness, compassion. Her fragmented bitter love would flow through her fingertips into my skin, and I didn't know, I don't know even still... I have no idea how to explain this to anyone. I could never even explain it to myself.

And oh, my head was killing me.  
…  
...

When I finally arrived at the precinct, Ray was obviously sulking with me. There was a time when that might have given me hope that he saw me a certain way. That certain way that I see him. She was in the way though. I saw everything through her. She was a prism, and all the light had changed.

“So, you decided to grace us with your presence,” Welsh said, as I sat heavily on the edge of Ray's desk.

“Yes, Sir.”

“And may I ask where you've been?”

It blurted out of me, insolence. “You may ask, Sir.”

Ray looked up at me then. I could feel his gaze on my back. Welsh paused for a moment, and I felt him give way. He probably thought it was something top secret. I did nothing to disabuse him of that notion.

Ray, however, knew better.

“You okay, Frase,” he asked.

I pulled out a chair, sat opposite him, pulled a pile of papers toward me.

“Frase? You don't look too good. You doing okay?”

“No.” 

I'd meant to lie to him, but the truth popped out before I even heard it in my head.

No. I was not doing okay.

My head hurt.


End file.
